all right it's time to talk about how European States got their seab based Empires on during the period 1450 to 1750 this was a massive turning point in world history so don't sleep on this one so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it now the first and most important thing you have to understand here is that this new era of seab based Empire building was state sponsored or state driven the reason why this is such a big deal is because it's the result of significant changes in the distribution of power in European States like now that Europeans have begun recovering from the devastating effects of the Black Death the population was beginning to grow again and monarchs began to get their power pants on by consolidating power under themselves and away from the nobility and taking a clue from those land-based Empires we got cozy within the last unit European monarchs built up their militaries learned how to use gunpowder weapons to blow up their enemies and implemented more efficient ways to tax their people cuz taking over the world ain't going to pay for itself y'all oh and by the way if you want no guys to follow along with this video in all my videos check the link in the description anyway a huge motivator for State sponsoring Maritime exploration was the increasing desire for Asian and Southeast Asian spices most notably pepper and why were they so crazy about pepper well to quote an Englishman from the 15th century pepper is black and it has a good smack I kid you not that is an actual quote so pepper smacked hard and those Europeans couldn't get enough of that spicy smack but as much as they wanted that smack Europeans faced a problem all those land-based Empires that we talked about in unit 3 controlled all the land routes through which those highly desirable spices passed and that meant that when they showed up to Europe they were exceedingly expensive and so as European states began growing in power they were highly motivated to find alternative routes to trade with states on the other side of the world and that means they began looking to the Sea so now let's turn the corner and meet some of these Rising seab based Empires and the first mover was Portugal and because Portugal was so unceremoniously lodged in the hind parts of the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon they had no way to expand except by the Sea and so a member of the royal family named Prince Henry the Navigator sponsored the first European attempts to find an all- water route into the Indian Ocean trade Network and I reckon we ought to talk about his motivations and I'll mention three first Portugal had adopted and developed the right technology recall from the last video that tools like the compass and the astrade were adopted by European powers but also Al Portugal developed new kinds of ships like the caravel and the carck which were built for this kind of exploration second there were economic motivations Prince Henry had become aware of the riches available in the trans Saharan trade mainly in the form of gold but he later decided that the smack of Asian spices was even more enticing and third there were religious motivations Not only was there a growing desire to spread Christianity throughout the world after Portugal and Spain had reconquered the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims but Prince Henry also desired to find a fabled Eastern Christian Monarch named prester John and we know now that the story of prester John was only a legend but hry believed it to be true and thought it would be a huge political and economic advantage to connect Christian states in the west to this Christian state in the East and so the Portuguese began their seab based exploration in Earnest and the result was what became known as a trading post Empire around Africa and eventually around the Indian Ocean you see here's where I tell you that establishing full-blown colonies was expensive and so the Portuguese strategy for Empire building was to establish self-sufficient trading posts in all these places whose main purpose was to facilitate trade they established their first major trading post in West Africa and to tell the truth the people there were very eag eager to trade with those pasty Europeans in their fancy caravels and mainly it was gold that the Portuguese were after in this region but then our boy Vasco dama went ahead and sailed around the southern tip of Africa and established Trading Post all down the Western and Eastern coasts as well but then something momentous occurred dama traveled all the way to cala and discovered that the riches to be made by participating in the Indian Ocean trade were far greater than their operations around Africa and so in subsequent voyages the Portuguese established trading posts throughout the region all the way to Southeast Asia and the thing is the Indian Ocean Network had Incorporated all kinds of different Merchants for many centuries but when the Portuguese showed up they were determined to own that Network and they had a relatively easy time doing that because as it turned out those caravels and cars had plenty of room for big honking guns which gave them a huge advantage over the lightly armed ships that were regulars in that Network okay now the next major European state to get involved in seab based exploration was Spain now while Portugal was busy asserting their dominance all over the Indian Ocean the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella were like yeah we got to get us some of that and right about then is when we meet our boy Christopher Columbus now he was a mariner from genan got himself some experience sailing fleets for the Portuguese down the African coast and he had this kooky idea that it would be way quicker to access the Spice Islands of the east by sailing west across the Atlantic and he tried to get the Portuguese Crown to sponsor a Westward Voyage but they were like you crazy so he presented his idea to Ferdinand and Isabella and they agreed to pay for it and so you probably already know the story in October of 1492 Columbus and his Fleet reached the Caribbean islands which he assumed were the Spice Islands of the East Indies I told y'all I did it I'm in Southeast Asia and even after three more voyages Columbus was convinced that he had landed in the East Indies but it soon became apparent to other explorers that Columbus had in fact bumped into two giant honking continents that nobody in Europe had previously known about and so Spain sponsored other explorers like Ferdinand mellan who sailed around the tip of South America and across the Pacific to the actual East Indies and so the Spanish began sending fleets to the Americas and conquering and colonizing every dang place they could that Venture opened up the transatlantic trade which would ultimately prove more prosperous than the Indian Ocean trade okay so Portugal and Spain got first dibs on the massive grab for seab based Empires but as their power and wealth began to increase like mad other European states began sponsoring Maritime exploration as well and why well for all the normal reasons political rivalry Envy the desire for wealth and most of all the need to find alternative sailing routes to Asia and I'll just introduce you briefly to three of these states first was France who sponsored Expedition seeking a Westward passage to the Indian Ocean now they didn't find that passage mainly because it didn't exist but as the French explored portions of North America they established themselves there and gained access to the incredibly lucrative fur trade in those regions and eventually by 1608 Samuel champ plain established the French colony of Quebec however they had a habit of dying in large numbers from diseases and their battles with the native iroy peoples and so like the Portuguese they mainly established their presence in the form of trading posts and then second England got into the cabbas exploration game as well now England was kind of late to the game mainly because their booming textile industry was making investors metric buttloads of money and they were therefore less willing to invest in Risky overseas Ventures however after Queen Elizabeth the first rose to power and defeated Spain's attempts to invade England which weakened Spain significantly she went ahead and threw her support behind Westward exploration to that end Elizabeth commissioned Sir Walter Raleigh to lead the Expedition and he went ahead and established England's first colony in the Americas known as Virginia it was kind of a disaster But ultimately it turned around with the establishment of Jamestown in 1607 and third let's consider the first efforts of Dutch exploration Now by 1579 The Dutch had gained independence from Spain and in the course of that struggle emerged as the wealthiest state in all of Europe and soon they began competing for control of trading posts around Africa and would eventually Dethrone the Portuguese as the kings of the Indian Ocean trade by 1608 the Dutch sponsored Henry Hudson s West in order to establish a Dutch presence in the new world which he did by founding the colony of New Amsterdam Okay click here to keep reviewing for unit 4 and click here to grab my video note guides they're really good for students who hate reading their textbook but still need to get the content of the course crammed into their brain folds I appreciate you hanging out and I'll catch you on the flipflop I'm L out